Thursday, March 25, 2010

An open note to bands on myspace

First of all, yes I still use myspace. I enjoy the relatively private format of it. No one has to know my real name, connections to family, whether I liked the cleavage of that redhead in Oregon. Plus, everyone knows I keep my fingers busy in many outlets.

I like to keep it positive, but I have a little rant. The the few bands that keep filling my inbox with event reminders & notices of their new forthcoming CD I am happy for you and proud of your accomplishments. I have meant many of you in person and been to your shows. I am proud of you for discovering how to use the internet in order to promote your ventures. We all know that I was born through a marriage of charm and web 2.0. That being said, filling my "inbox" with 55 reminders of your show that is coming up in 6 months, 3 months, 2 months, 6 days, 5 days, 3 hours is not appreciated. In fact, it is quite old fashioned and annoying. The beauty of web 2.0 is its information "stream", be it twitter, facebook, or even myspace. Post a bulletin, post a status, create an event, send a tweet. Let your fans and me see the information when we want to. Post it 8 times a day, I've done it. But please save my "inboxes" for personal messages, relative to me only.

Since I am feeling like a dick, here's an example:

a. Facebook status update, tweet, or myspace bulletin "The Tiki Pimps playing live with the Dawn Ho's at the Coconut Lounge next week. Click this link for more info. Hope to see you there."

b. Facebook inbox, twitter DM, or good old fashioned email "Hey TikiTender, if you want to come to our show at the Coconut Lounge let me know. We will leave passes at the door. If you can't come we will send you a t-shirt, CD, and a large breasted redhead because we appreciate you being a fan so much."

It really is the whole point social media to put out the information and let people scoop it up not to grab them by the throat and say "Read This!!!! Don't you see the little light on your blackberry, fool!!! Read this!!!! I don't think you saw it the first time so here it is on your email too!!!! I know you don't know how to use a calendar application on your phone or computer so I will remind you myself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Since I just learned how to type, I will also misspell the subject line on EVERY email!!!!"

So, from this point forward, I will be deleting the bands who choose to constantly send me poorly worded & redundant messages. Unless of course its a band I actually care about, like The Transfers or Say Never. You guys rock.

I know this might sound funny coming from the king of twitter and facebook status updates. But pretend for a second that every time I went to Poor Walt's I sent all of you personal messages that probably give you a least an email alert saying "Checked in at Walt's". You wouldn't be my friend for long would you? Well you probably would because I'm awesome.

While I am on the subject of poor etiquette. Hey products, brands, and businesses. Look into "fan pages" on facebook. No thanks to such and such brand name, I will not be accepting you as a friend. As public as I seem I don't like giving out all the details of my life to a company or brand. I will happily become a fan of your product thought if it interests me. That's why fan pages work. I can get all your information (good for you) while still keeping my information private (good for me).